Cheer up, Heathens (Music Finds #32)

“Music Finds” is a series with new posts here on the blog each Wednesday. The concept is as follows:As I listen to a lot of music, I from time to time finds a piece that sticks out, sometimes because it’s quirky, mixed two very unlikely genres, unlikely instruments, or just damn right having an awesome sound. Expect any kind of genre to appear here. These songs is what I will be sharing with you in these posts called “Music Finds”
But really it’s mostly a segment about some of my most played songs!”

I haven’t yet fully understood this PV, but the song has a really sentimental vibe that made it stick with me since I found it.

This is a song that my sister showed me a while ago, but its first verse have been stuck on my mind ever since.

You and your divine headings. It’s a game to try and keep up with you. This combination of music is equally entrancing. Quite the thing.

Cheer up!

It does feel sentimental; I interpret the video to be just that. Pretty much like how Galsworthy writes family drama, different kinds of things happen throughout life and so different things at different stages will cheer you up. The overall feeling seems to point that despite that, there are similarities in the actual feelings. I’m not sure that is the right way but it’s the impression it made on me. I blame Galsworthy for this. It seems to me that the people in the video is in different stages of life but all of them found their form of cheer up. At the end perhaps that the gap in ages is not so big after all. In the end we all need a bit of attention and love. It will not change. I find it to be moving as a song and video. Beautifully balanced not too sentimental but very emotional. It has kind of a traditional sound that for me makes it family tied.

It cheered me up, well both songs did. Can’t help but be moved, kindness always do.

Heathens

I hope you told your sister heartfelt thanks. I haven’t listened to Twenty One Pilots in a while and I’m so out of touch with real life, I have heard this when in town somewhere but not reflected on where it came from. Instantly like it and yes the first verse is a bullet on point.

This is a subject close to heart and on my mind now because we were handed an assignment to write about migration and the feeling of exclusion or not belonging. Not necessarily as a clash between countries or cultures. How does this fit together? I think in long steps, I think if you get inside my head you know this. I find awareness in this song and lyrics that describes the experience of exile and isolation from. To know you’re an outsider for a reason, how it is to be a grenade, but not really losing the ability to love and hold on to that what is treasured. This constant awareness.

Okay I’ll start this line of thought with something that’s not my experience, but something that struck me when I was listening to a lecture by writer and journalist Khaled Alesmael. He is from Syria and he talked about his experience of having to leave his country because of the revolution and subsequent civil war. He eventually ended up in Sweden, his now adopted country (I thought that such a wonderful description of his now). As all refugees he ended up in a house for asylum seekers with many other different people. And when dealing with living in such a place he said you need to remember that all who end up there have in some way been through a trauma that you don’t know anything about. In such a place being careful and taking it slow and no sudden moves are essential. Don’t start any stupid arguments over who took the last coffee or other none necessary confrontations. Remember that people are broken, not feeling safe. That is certainly an extreme place but the general idea applies. Don’t assume a lot of things you don’t know. It doesn’t mean walk on egg shells around other people, no it means respect people’s reaction and when they go funny on you, maybe there’s a story there. Stop and think; maybe someone else’s hands/words have not been as kind as yours.

Invisible scars are so much trickier than physical ones. And the person doesn’t always know how they react different. Often it’s a basic response and not something deliberate. It’s not there to make you feel small. For every strange behaviour there’s an explanation. I find it extremely hard to talk about bad things that have happened because I don’t want to drag people down with me. Force them into my seriousness. Note that this is my thought, this is not the way all have made me feel at all, this is my fear. Nothing rational about it. Erasing what feels like a stigma of being a downer a broken piece is hard. It also makes me into who I am, it’s not all bad, it has made me very aware of other people’s pain and keen to know their story. To listen.

I like songs like this. It’s a reminder that what is seemingly straight forward for you can be traumatising for someone else. We are very much our own experiences, good and bad. Don’t be scared of walking on those mines, it’s unavoidable if you want to be close to someone. (I wish I took my own advice at times.) My point is, sometimes to make someone stronger and better you need to detonate the bomb and shatter their world for a while to bring them through the darkness and the pain because what’s on the other side is a better and easier life. It’s hard though.

Sometimes we feel shame for touching a scar or stumble upon something sensitive. I feel a lot of shame when I for example listen to stories like Khaleds. I have had it good compared to that. But as he said, that’s not the point to make people feel bad or ashamed; it’s about telling the story sharing the experience and the perspective it gives. If you listen and read the story you’ve showed understanding and respect and that in itself is the important act. I agree with him. I don’t mind when you touch old scars or challenge my fear. However at times I cannot find the way to express myself immediately.

Compassion, both sides of, is magical.

This sounds darn complicated and heavy but I think this song also tells that if you do take it slow and ask the questions and respect and listen you’ll find this people will become more open and well around you. What better cheer up could there be than to be able to be oneself and knowing that is perfectly fine. One of the best gifts to give someone.

Heathens have always looked after each other more than any group that have described them as heathens. The song also carries a warning of not going close and be bad to one of my people. Laugh at the different and you’ll have to watch it. Oh yes, very I’ll be your psychopath baby. I love that. That is so my kind of people. Respect and don’t make sudden moves that upset. I won’t stand for such bullshit!

Can’t remember how I ended up listening to Twenty One Pilots before but there is pretty much the same survivor feel to their other songs. One of the other songs I remember is Lane Boy. Those beats. And I happen to have a particular line that has stuck with me from that: “Don’t trust a perfect person and don’t trust a song that’s flawless, honest”

That is very much my thinking. I have issues with that. I don’t want or need flawless, I love those flaws way too much, makes it real. Perfect people or seemingly perfect people scare me. I don’t mean people with confidence or people that do perfect things for you. They’re awesome! I mean those almost plastic unreal have killed all the character of themselves to be just perfect on surface, in life and in speech people. For me they’re unreal.

I think we all strive for complete in some sense, but that don’t in my mind mean flawless. Be your flaws and your peculiarities and slightly odd shapes or whatever. That is something true people will fall for. It’s the same for me with songs and texts or art of any kind. Now back to SaSa inspirations for an example when she wrote about Hyde and his vocals. You could say that his vocals are not perfect. No, but his vocal work are very interesting. And that ability to play around with it is in a sense perfectly imperfect. As an example of what I mean.

Well the meta reflectiveness of Lane Boy is very close to my own thinking (especially when deep in writing mood) and that certainly adds to the appeal of the song. I do take long steps when I listen, perhaps I made some sense. Maybe I didn’t. I do like to stream write my thoughts of music. Often enough I use music as a starting point of exploring my writing.

I certainly have used your music that way, and what interesting places it takes me. And I will continue to do so.